I hate to be a Cassandra, but a rising and strong India is not on the agenda of anybody but Indians—and, too, only some Indians. Others, and you know who they are, are quite happy to revert to the status quo of the pre-1991 era, when India, the alleged socialist paradise, steadily lost ground and became poorer and poorer relative to other countries. – Prof. Rajeev Srinivasan
While we can all laugh at the absurdities mouthed by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in his war against India, there are meta-questions that really beg for an answer: What is going on? Who is behind all this? Why now? What other precedents do we look at? What do we see as immediate fallout?
I am a student of narrative building. I wrote about information warfare a couple of months ago and pointed out that this particular method of creation of narratives, while it has long been popular, now functions at warp speed, and the targets of such narratives often get blindsided, or worse.
I spoke of the sudden U-turns that ended up deposing erstwhile friends like Saddam Hussein and Manuel Noriega, and I pointed out that something along those lines had happened with Sheikh Hasina in Bangladesh in August. There are other examples: for instance, the Maidan Revolution courtesy Victoria Nuland that ended up in the overthrow in Ukraine of Viktor Yanukovych, the installation of Volodymyr Zelensky, and … well, you know the rest.
There is a pattern: You unilaterally label somebody a terrorist, and then you proceed to topple him/her. In the old American idiom, “give a dog a bad name, and hang him”. With our supine obeisance to Big Tech and Western media, and thus their gaslighting, we (that is, anybody other than the elites running the West) just believe the propaganda narrative and blame ourselves for not noticing this all along. Total mind-control, in other words. Mission accomplished, consent manufactured.
That makes me quite nervous about what’s going on with the Canadians. It’s true that the Trudeaus, pere et fils, have simply ignored the Khalistani terror problem, both before and after the tragic downing of Air India Kanishka, Flight 182, almost 40 years ago, and the deaths of 329 people. Since those 329 were mostly brown people, it appeared to be not an issue.
There was dissenting opinion: Major Commission report from 2021 excoriated the Canadian government for incompetence and complacency. Here is an excerpt.
But nobody has ever been brought to book for the bombing. And this has gotten worse over time: Khalistanis like US citizen Gurpatwant Singh Pannun regularly threaten to blow up Air India planes and warn that this will happen on specific occasions where he suggests people should avoid flying on Air India. These are acts of transnational terror and intimidation, but he gets a pass.
Maybe it’s a coincidence, but after Trudeau’s outburst earlier this week, there have been at least a dozen incidents of bomb threats against Indian-owned aircraft. One circumpolar Air India Delhi-Chicago flight ended up landing in an obscure Canadian airport in Iqaluit in the Great White North because of an online bomb threat. It’s possible that Khalistanis are involved.
Furthermore, there is some kind of summons issued against Indian National Security Advisor Ajit Doval in a lawsuit filed by Pannun (who is a lawyer himself) in the comical case of an alleged plot to bump him off, wherein an alleged Indian operative allegedly tried to pay an alleged hitman money to do the deed.
The latest round of the hoo-haa has Canadians targeting Home Minister Amit Shah. Dutifully, the Washington Post with its old US State Department links has made a whole series of serious allegations, which would be funny if they weren’t so noir.
But this time it is different. Things are coming to a head. The sum and substance is that, after the long-running attack on social media on Hindus as ‘pajeets’ and ‘street defecators’, now the stage is set to declare “the Modi regime” a “rogue government”, as though fascist, brutal, anti-minority, and other epithets they habitually use were not enough.
The next step would be regime change, of course. Is India prepared to defend itself?
But before that, there will be ‘sanctions’. No more Indian mangoes, I bet.
All this is strictly from the Deep State playbook, so a priori I would blame either Foggy Bottom or Langley, but right now, in the middle of a gruelling presidential election? Don’t they have bigger fish to fry? So, I started to wonder if it was some other entity that had prodded Trudeau.
It was interesting to see the closed ranks among the Five Eyes, which is to say English-speaking white countries or the Anglosphere. Keir Starmer of the UK supported Trudeau with alacrity, so much so that I began to wonder if this assault on India is actually a British plot, considering two things.
Brits may have been really annoyed that an Indian-origin prime minister, Rishi Sunak, led them for a while, and they think India is insufficiently respectful of the British King, who, oddly enough, is Canada’s Head of State, and probably Australia’s and New Zealand’s as well. Maybe they blame India for Chagossians finally getting out of brutal colonial control (which by the way means the end of the grandly named “British Indian Ocean Territories”), which has an impact on the US naval base at Diego Garcia, for which Chagos islanders had been displaced.
The Five Eyes have exalted opinions of themselves. For instance, one of the Joe Biden administration’s many unfathomable decisions was to downgrade the sensible Quad (the brainchild of Abe Shinzo) and instead plump for AUKUS (Australia, the UK, and the US, which is all, well, white) with the remarkable story of wanting British technology transfer to Australia for submarines. Let me repeat that: British. Technology. Transfer.
And here I was, thinking the objective was to contain a rampaging China!
Then there are other little episodes that need to be remembered. Sheikh Hasina, before being overthrown, stated that the US wanted an island near Cox’s Bazar for a naval base and, more alarmingly, that there was a plan for a Christian Zo state that would include territories in India, Bangladesh, and Myanmar. This is again a Deep State modus operandi; see East Timor and South Sudan.
Further, the US Ambassador to India, Eric Garcetti, has been hyperactive in “subnational diplomacy” along with other US officials, meeting M.K. Stalin one day and doling out funds, paying special attention to the restive Northeast the next day.
Not content with that, here’s more from the energetic Garcetti:
Assuming these tweets are authentic, things do look a little bleak for India and the Modi regime at the moment. Balkanising India has long been a goal of the Deep State, reflecting the wishes of its proxies in Rawalpindi and Islamabad.
I hate to be a Cassandra, but a rising and strong India is not on the agenda of anybody but Indians—and, too, only some Indians. Others, and you know who they are, are quite happy to revert to the status quo of the pre-1991 era, when India, the alleged socialist paradise, steadily lost ground and became poorer and poorer relative to other countries.
These are dangerous times. I have been nervous about Deep State intent since the days of Madeleine Albright and Robin Raphel, and I am concerned about the prospect of Kamala Harris moving into the White House after the presidential elections. I am worried about a faction of the US establishment that is congenitally anti-India.
Given the looming threat of China, I would much prefer a good working relationship between the US and India, my two favourite countries, and I’d like to take the protestations of common interests (including a very large purchase of Predator drones by India) at face value, but as Ronald Reagan said memorably, “Trust, but verify”. – Firstpost, 20 October 2024
› Prof. Rajeev Srinivasan is a management consultant and columnist. He focuses on strategy and innovation and has taught at several IIMs.
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